Now mini drones will help keep a watch over Delhi at night. The rape of a 25-year-old woman allegedly by a Uber cab driver has prompted the city police to deploy these drones fitted with night vision cameras to help them with surveillance. This is the first project of its kind in India.
All dark stretches and "crime-prone areas" will have these drones - fitted with night-vision thermal imaging cameras - and will help the police with patrolling such neighbourhoods. It will be first launched next month in north Delhi, which is where the rape allegedly took place last Friday night.
A PTI report quoted a senior police officer that this will make north Delhi the first district with complete camera surveillance in Delhi, using CCTVs (close-circuited television cameras) and drones. Only a few buildings that belong to senior government officials will be kept out of surveillance due to security reasons.
The accused cab driver, Yadav, had admitted to having "sexually assaulted many women," according a CNN-IBN report. Yadav revealed that "he targeted women who took cab from Gurgaon malls to Delhi" during his interrogation by the police, according to the television report. Anything revealed in a police interrogation without a magistrate present is however inadmissible as evidence in the court.
Yadav was sent to judicial custody on Thursday evening till December 24.
Meanwhile Uber suspended its operations on Thursday evening in Delhi, more than three days after the city government had banned them. HuffPost India had first reported how the cab service was still available on Tuesday despite the ban.
A taxi union leader had reportedly attacked the Uber general manager in Mumbai, Shailesh Sawlani, on Wednesday.